Late Monday night, NBC News “revealed” that a series of text messages sent between a handful of Brett Kavanaugh’s friends showed that the Supreme Court nominee was aware a classmate named Deborah Ramirez intended to make a claim against him. NBC News framed the information as evidence that Kavanaugh lied under oath on Thursday when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he learned of Ramirez’s accusations only when they were first published in The New Yorker.

In today’s @NBCFirstRead: https://t.co/njNpLQRe6z pic.twitter.com/0Qgr8dRk4n

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 2, 2018

“The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of The New Yorker article that made her allegation public,” the mainstream media outlet reported. “In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh’s team and former classmates in advance of the story.”

Damning, right? According to the story, Kavanaugh knew about Ramirez ahead of time and was marshaling his own defense for days before she went public, only he told Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) last Thursday that he only found out about Ramirez’s claims when Ronan Farrow released his tell-all.

There’s just one problem: the NBC News story leaves out a key detail. Kavanaugh admitted, in a deposition conducted by Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, that he knew Ramirez was looking for dirt and calling around to a handful of shared acquaintances trying to substantiate her own claims, and that he discussed the flurry of activity with an “inner circle” of associates.

But Kavanaugh didn’t find out precisely what Ramirez was telling reporters until reporters for The New Yorker asked him for comment.

NBC News somehow missed that little detail. But Twitter didn’t. And one user, “@AG_conservative,” laid out the holes in NBC’s reporting for the world to see.

The media is the enemy. No other way to put it. They have lied intentionally over and over again in the last few weeks.

And no one bothers to check.

— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) October 1, 2018

Take note that they omit most of the actual transcript. All their evidence simply shows that someone in his group seemed to know Ramirez was trying to accuse him of something. Here is the relevant part of the interview Kavanaugh did:

Note: “Incident matching this description” pic.twitter.com/YlBdRMEjma

— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) October 1, 2018

What NBC omits? Ramirez had been calling mutual friends for weeks looking for dirt on him. That’s how we know that she had admitted she wasn’t even sure it was Kavanaugh.

Here is Kavanaugh later in the same interview with the committee: pic.twitter.com/ex4Dsww8R0

— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) October 1, 2018

In other words, Kavanaugh had already heard and testified in the very same interview that Ramirez was calling around looking for dirt on him. He didn’t know the specific allegation, but he had every reason to try to pre-empt something from her.

— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) October 1, 2018

Here’s Kavanaugh’s testimony in full:

They couldn’t — The New York Times couldn’t corroborate this story and found that she was calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it. And I, at least — and I, myself, heard about that, that she was doing that. And you know, that just strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people, is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that?

The testimony matches with that Kavanaugh gave when under oath in front of the Judiciary Committee.

Additionally, Kavanaugh made it clear in his deposition that he was, in fact, communicating with friends, trying to figure out what Ramirez was saying to members of the media, so technically, NBC News’s bombshell isn’t even … new.

After @AG_conservative’s systematic dismantling of their story went viral, NBC News made corrections, but Tuesday morning, the network was still pushing the story (though now with a vague reference to Kavanaugh’s deposition).

The NBC story accusing Kavanaugh of perjury has been updated—without any note, or acknowledgement of that fact—and now includes a reference to the full September 25th testimony that flatly contradicts the claim being made. And yet NBC is still pushing it. pic.twitter.com/6Xt6ifH9m2

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 2, 2018

Oops.